Читать книгу Browning's Shorter Poems - Robert Browning - Страница 17

70He advanced to the council-table:

And, "Please your honors," said he, "I'm able,

By means of a secret charm, to draw

All creatures living beneath the sun,

That creep or swim or fly or run,

After me so as you never saw!

And I chiefly use my charm[page 5]

On creatures that do people harm,

The mole and toad and newt and viper;

And people call me the Pied Piper."

80(And here they noticed round his neck

A scarf of red and yellow stripe,

To match with his coat of self-same cheque:

And at the scarf's end hung a pipe;

And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying,

As if impatient to be playing

Upon this pipe, as low it dangled

Over his vesture so old-fangled.)

"Yet," said he, "poor piper as I am,

°89In Tartary I freed the Cham,° 90Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats; °91I eased in Asia the Nizam° Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats: And as for what your brain bewilders, If I can rid your town of rats Will you give me a thousand guilders?" "One? fifty thousand!"—was the exclamation Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.

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